Krzysztof Olczak: “We have many strong fighters of the world level“

The National Team of Poland has about 50 fighters. They form 3 teams for the “5 vs 5” competition, a team for “21 vs 21” battles and compete as individual fighters in triathlon (men’s and women’s categories). Men for five-member teams are chosen by the captains of 3 best teams of our PLWR Winter League. This year we had 6 league tournaments. The first place went to KS Rycerz Sieradz and Dies Irae ex aequo et bono. The 3rd place was taken by a team called “Sierotki.” And captains of those 3 teams are also captains of our 3 “5 vs 5” national teams. Remaining candidates were chosen by myself and Łukasz Płaza, field captain for “21 vs 21” battles. In the league “5 vs 5” competition there were 15 teams from Poland which gave us total of 120 – 130 fighters applying for the National Team.

Also, there were 3 guest teams from other countries at some of our league tournaments (Russia, Belarus and Germany).

We have many strong fighters of the world level. For duels we have Marcin Waszkielis (was the second best at “Battle of the Nations”-2012 held in Warsaw) and Krzysztof Szatecki (was the third best at “Battle of the Nations”-2013 held in France). As for duels of women, we have Maja Olczak, a very experienced fighter who has been winning all women’s sword and shield tournaments in Poland since 2005 and competing in men’s tournaments as well, and Marta Kupczyk, a new uprising star from “Silesia” club.

The most interesting and dangerous opponent is, as always, Russia-1. But there are also other strong and dangerous teams like Team Ukraine and Team Belarus which have been our opponents since the first “Battle of the Nations”. Fighting against those teams is always hard. Some other teams like Israel, Austria or Germany, which made great progress, can be a surprise for all of us at “Battle of the Nations”-2014.

The biggest abroad tournament which Polish team is going to attend before Trogir is tournament in Spain. Some of us attended the elimination tournament in Prague with a combined team formed of my club’s representatives, as well as KS “Rycerz Sieradz” and “Silesia” team fighters. Polish team has attended the “Rise of the Knights” in Bernau (Germany) this year. I know that there will be another event in Copenhagen in June and our 2 teams will go there. Some of our representatives cooperate with Lithuanian fighters at “Grunwald Academy of Sword” and they are holding events in Poland and Lithuania together. I think Polish fighters will join more tournaments held abroad later this year.

We have great ambitions and hopes for this year’s “Battle of the Nations”, especially the “5 vs 5” category. But it is difficult to predict any results, especially taking into account the fact that more and more countries become interested in it year after year. Teams and fighters are training hard, we wish all the teams to show their best.